


Somebody Loved

by JessBakesCakes



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Probably a little bit of angst too, lots of fluffy stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29571054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessBakesCakes/pseuds/JessBakesCakes
Summary: A collection of Josh/Donna ficlets based on Tumblr prompts, in no particular order. Each chapter will have a summary and a description.
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 18
Kudos: 68





	1. "You fainted, are you alright?"

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This is a place where I'll cross-post my responses to various Tumblr prompts. 
> 
> This one is based off of the prompt "You fainted, are you alright?" Josh/Donna, very early season 1. The senior staff participates in a blood drive.

Josh turns up the volume on the TV to listen to CJ’s briefing as Donna walks into his office. She sits in a seat across from him and opens a folder, stealing a pen from Josh’s desk and beginning to write. **  
**

“The President is set to leave for St. Louis at noon today, so he will be unable to give blood himself. But members of the President’s senior staff, myself included, have volunteered to donate blood to display the White House’s commitment to the cause,” CJ explains as she briefs the press on the schedule for the day. 

Josh stands up, crosses his arms, and leans on his desk. “I think what she meant to say was ‘several members of senior staff are only doing this because they were lectured and guilt-tripped by the President of the United States’ but if that’s how you want to put it, I guess.”

“I wasn’t guilt-tripped,” Donna says. “I signed up before the First Lady even mentioned it to anyone. Then again, I’m not senior staff.”

“You just love to make the rest of us look bad, don’t you?” 

Donna doesn’t look up from the paperwork she’s working on. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t gain the smallest amount of enjoyment from it.”

“I’m the least equipped of all of us to give blood,” Josh says. “They know I’m squeamish.”

“I think your aversion to bodily fluids is well established, yes.” She closes the folder and stands up. “Come on, we need to head over.”

“I’m not going to look,” Josh protests, to no one in particular. 

“I think everyone will be grateful for that.”

Josh holds the door for her, ushering her through the hallway with a hand on the small of her back. “And I’m going to take more than one cookie.”

“You are a very powerful man, Josh. I have no doubt they’ll give you all the cookies that you demand.”

“I’m going to leave my sleeves rolled up to show everyone I donated,” Josh continues. 

Donna sighs. “Because nothing says ‘I’m a good person’ like making sure everyone knows you put in the effort to do the good thing you didn’t want to do in the first place.”

Josh and Donna wait for their turn to donate, Josh with his head in his hands and Donna absent-mindedly turning the pages of an old magazine. They’re brought back at the same time, but Josh is finished donating a few minutes before Donna is. He plops himself down in a chair next to her. 

“The nurse said I finished the fastest out of all the people she worked with today,” Josh brags. 

“Of course it’s a competition now,” Donna says. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing on your part, though.”

She can’t help but notice he’s lingering near her - he could very easily have left several minutes ago. But he’s looking her in the eye and joking with her as he shoves a second cookie in his mouth, and Donna can’t help but be just a little smitten by that. 

When the donation process is finished, Donna moves to sit up but feels a little light-headed. She slowly and carefully stands up, knowing that she has to be cautious, or… the room will start to spin, just like it is now. 

She vaguely remembers Josh catching her before she hits the ground and the subsequent chaos of moving somewhere out of everyone’s way to let her recover. Josh is standing over her and Abbey is taking her pulse when she fully comes to. 

“You fainted, are you alright?” he asks, concerned. 

“Fainted makes it sound like I need a couch and some smelling salts, Josh,” Donna says. “You can say I passed out. What’s next, you telling me about my wandering uterus?”

“I’m guessing that’s a medical joke.” Josh turns to Abbey, who has made her way over to the other side of the cot he’s placed Donna on. 

“A pretty feminist medical joke, at that,” Abbey answers. 

Josh looks back at Donna, smirking. “Sounds like she’s just fine, then.”

“She’s going to be just fine, yes. But I still don’t want her up and moving around yet,” Abbey insists. “Sit with her for a little while and make sure she eats some cookies and drinks some fruit juice. I’ll be back to check on her in a little while.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Donna says. “I’m so sorry I caused all this trouble.”

“Happens all the time,” Abbey says. “Even to people who have donated before. You haven’t caused any trouble at all.”

Abbey excuses herself and leaves Josh and Donna alone. Donna looks toward the cookies in his hand and watches as he starts to eat another one. He brings it halfway to his mouth and stops. “What?”

“You heard her,” Donna says. “She said to make sure I eat cookies and drink fruit juice.”

Josh sighs and hands her the chocolate chip cookie he was about to eat. 

“Oh, I think I’ll need more than one cookie, Josh.”

“I’ll go get you some oatmeal raisin,” he says. “I got the last of the chocolate chip.”

“Josh,” Donna almost-whines. “I fainted. I think I deserve the chocolate chip.”

“You mean _passed out_ ,” Josh retorts, handing her the remaining cookies. 

“Whatever,” she says, taking a large bite out of the newly acquired chocolate chip cookies. 

He grabs some juice and hands it to her, along with a cool cloth for her head, before sitting down on the end of the cot. He grins at her as he eats another cookie, and she can’t help but wonder if he’s just a little smitten, too.


	2. Things you said at the kitchen table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt "Things you said at the kitchen table." Josh/Donna, post series.

“We should go to the farmers market today.”

Josh lifts his gaze from the sports section of the paper. “Huh?”

Donna takes a bite of cereal and shifts in the chair, crossing her legs underneath her oversized, worn-out Bartlet for America t-shirt. “The farmers market. You know, fruits, vegetables, assorted produce… there’s a lady who makes her own salsa there.”

“The salsa you used to bring in all the time? That was good salsa.”

She nods. “Well, we can go get some. And maybe some flowers. We can put them on the coffee table. Sometimes I miss having the cats around but it’s nice to have flowers without worrying they’re going to eat something poisonous.” 

He watches as she tucks in a strand of hair that’s fallen out of the loose ponytail on the top of her head and turns the page of the paper. “Anyway. The market opens at 10, so we could get there early and bring it all home,” she continues. “I know if you had your way we wouldn’t leave this place all weekend, but the pollen count is low today. Plus, the weather’s supposed to be beautiful, and it’s springtime in D.C. We need to take advantage.”

Josh doesn’t say anything. He just listens to her ramble, grinning as she stops talking briefly to take a bite of her cereal. Some days it feels like they’ve been doing this for years, enjoying the quiet domesticity of the routine they’ve fallen into. Other days, the joy he feels when he realizes that she’s his, he’s hers, and they’re doing this together makes him want to burst. Today, he can’t believe that she’s sitting at their kitchen table in a t-shirt and her underwear, talking to him through bites of cereal about flowers and food for their shared home.

“Josh?” Donna puts her hand on his arm. “You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Where you just stare at me and assume I can communicate with you via telepathy alone.” She takes her hand away and shovels the last bite of cereal into her mouth, not bothering to finish chewing before she speaks again. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to make it early.”

He can’t help himself as he lets out a laugh. “God, Donna, I love you so much, you know that?”

Donna swallows her cereal and looks at him, stunned into silence by his declaration. She lets out a slow breath. “Honestly, Josh, you couldn’t have picked any other moment to tell me that? Any other moment over the last… almost ten years? This is the one?”

He feels like he’s been punched in the gut when she says this, but he sees a grin spread across her face and her eyes get a little misty before she reaches across the table to playfully smack him on the arm. “Ow! Donna!”

“Josh, we’re going to tell our grandchildren this story someday, and now I have to tell them that their grandfather told me he loved me for the first time when I had squirrel cheeks full of Honey Nut Cheerios!” 

Josh stands up from the table and grabs her hand, pulling her up from her seat. “I’m still stuck on the fact that you just told me that we’re going to have grandkids someday, so I can’t bring myself to care.” He pulls her toward him for a kiss, pulling the ponytail holder out of her hair so he can run his fingers through it.

When they break the kiss, she pulls away, breathless and flushed, grinning as she takes his hands in hers. “I love you, too, Josh.”


	3. Things you said when you were scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt "Things you said when you were scared". Josh/Donna, takes place during In The Shadow of Two Gunmen Part II.

She’s torn a hole in the sleeve of her sweater from pulling at the string. With every passing hour, the hole gets bigger, and now her thumb is peeking through it. It’s strange – she suddenly doesn’t quite know what to do with her hands.

They told Donna that Josh wasn’t out of the woods yet, but the fact that he made it through surgery is promising. She feels like she’s intruding; people have been filing in and out of his room since his surgery ended, each more important than the last. They all give her sympathetic eyes, gentle shoulder squeezes, whispered promises that he’ll pull through, he’s a fighter. But the words and the looks are empty and meaningless when no one’s even offered to let her see him.

So when Josh’s mom grabs her by the shoulders and steers her toward the chair next to Josh’s bed before leaving to get some food, Donna finally breaks down. On the list of important people who should be in this chair, she’s toward the bottom. But on the list of people who love him beyond reason, the people whose lives would fall apart without him - well, she and the woman who sat her in this chair likely make up the list in its entirety.

Donna puts her hand in his, taking slow, deep breaths to will the tears to stop. When they finally do, she moves the chair a little closer. “These chairs are so uncomfortable,” she says to no one in particular before turning to address Josh. “Not like your bed is any better, I’m sure.”

The beeping of the machines is the only response she gets. 

“If you were awake, you’d make some crack about trying it out, or something, with that weird innuendo I let you get away with because… well. You know.”

As soon as the words leave her lips, it hits her. He _doesn’t_ know. 

The tears well up in her eyes again and she takes another shaky breath. “Josh, there’s a lot I really want to say to you right now, and I don’t know how to say any of it. I don’t think I could put it into words. Well, I could, but they’re not words you need to hear right now. And this isn’t about me and how much I love you, it’s about…” 

She stops babbling when she realizes how much she’s said, thankful that the room is empty and he isn’t awake to hear it. 

“I’ll tell you again some other time when you’re not… like this. Just… you’re… please be okay.”

She stares at their intertwined hands for what feels like hours until she hears him whisper her name.


	4. "Don't look at me like that"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna ties Josh's bow tie. Based on the prompts "Don't look at me like that"/"I can't concentrate when you're looking at me like that".

“I can’t concentrate when you’re looking at me like that.”

He was about to get in the car when she ran after him and grabbed him by the arm. _Your bow tie_ , she’d said, _it’s gonna fall apart_. So now he’s standing in the doorway of the Bartlet for America campaign offices, watching Donna as she adjusts… whatever it is that needs to be adjusted. 

“Like what?”

He doesn’t think he’s looking at her like… anything, really. It could be his patented Josh Lyman ‘let’s hurry up and get this over with’ face he’s been perfecting for the better part of almost forty years, but he gives her that face at least ten times a day and she doesn’t react like this. 

“Like… you know.” She says it with a smile, and her cheeks are flushed. 

“I really don’t.”

She changes the subject. She reminds him of a few key talking points to share with various partygoers as she finishes her work on his tie. Donna looks him in the eye, brushing an invisible piece of lint off of his jacket before she steps away, still smiling. 

~*~

The material on Donna’s gown makes a _swish_ noise as she moves closer to him, undoing his tie and starting from scratch. She doesn’t normally wear perfume. But Josh notices that she is tonight. It’s something fruity. 

“You’re doing it again.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He truly _doesn’t_ have any idea what she’s talking about. But she seems to have a _very specific_ idea of what she’s talking about. Which she certainly isn’t sharing. 

“You can’t have your tie coming undone at an inaugural ball for a President you helped get elected,” she laughs, ignoring his earlier statement. 

“I really am quite something.” He looks up at her, smirking. 

Donna just smiles.

~*~

“Come here, Wild Thing.” She reaches for his tie. “It’s crooked.”

He takes just a minute to look at the way her curls frame her face, the way her hands move in front of him, the way she scrunches her nose just a little if the tie isn’t cooperating. He can smell the champagne on her breath and for just a moment, he wonders what kissing her would taste like. 

“If you want me to do this for you, you have to stop.”

He thinks he knows now. How he’s looking at her, that is. “Are you ever going to tell me what you mean, Donnatella Moss?”

She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but changes course before the words come out. “Are you ever going to learn to tie your own bow tie?”

“Nah.”

“Then I do believe we’re at an impasse.”

~*~

He knows that no one can tell that he’s wearing a pre-tied tie. Donna’s even suggested it to him before. But there’s something about it that feels like cheating. 

He’s searching the ballroom for the Congressman, but Josh knows he’s lost him. He takes another drink and checks his watch, suddenly very aware of his pre-tied tie. It feels tight around his neck like it doesn’t sit right. It feels like maybe he should loosen it, but the chances of making it worse are far greater than the chances of improving his comfort level. And he has no one to fix it.

It hits him all at once just how much he’d give to hear her tell him to knock it off. Whatever it was. 

~*~

“Who tied your tie?” She takes a seat next to him and adjusts the skirt of her dress. The guests are still waiting for the President to arrive for the wedding and his previous seatmates have abandoned their chairs, and as overwhelmed as he is, her presence is strangely calming. 

“I did.” He attempts a smile, but she can see right through him and he knows it. 

“Liar.” She leans forward and attempts to straighten it before letting out a sigh. 

“Was that an ‘oh, I see you tried to search for how to do it on the internet, so you aren’t lying’ sigh, or a ‘stop looking at me like that, but I won’t tell you how’ sigh?”

“Both.” 

It feels a little strange to be this close to her when things between them are still so raw. But she carries on like it’s 1999 and all they have to worry about is a wayward senator who could throw a wrench in their agenda. So he follows suit. 

“Joshua.”

He looks up at her expectantly, waiting for the song and dance, but she says nothing. 

~*~

“Couldn’t make it until the end of the night without a tie disaster, could you?”

He laughs. “I’m hopeless, Donnatella, it’s okay to say it.”

“You’re the second most powerful man in the country. What happened to _I’m really quite something_?”

“I’m nothing without you.” He says it without missing a beat, and he’s only half-joking. 

She stops tying his tie and looks at him, her expression a perfect mix of exasperation and awe, as only she can do. “You really do have to stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

She sighs. “This is ridiculous. Did you bring the pre-tied tie?”

He makes a show of fishing around in his pants pockets before putting a hand into the inner pocket of his jacket, where he feels only the small velvet box he grabbed on the way out the door. “You know, I think I left it on the coffee table.”

~*~

“Don’t look at me like that.” 

“Okay, as your husband, I’m going to have to insist…”

She leans forward toward his ear, her hands on his collar. “Like you want to take my clothes off,” she says, her voice low. 

He can’t help but laugh. “First of all, I’m pretty sure I can look at you however I want to. You’re my wife.”

“I don’t know about the first part, but the second part tracks.” Her ring reflects a bit of the setting sun as she works on his tie. 

“Second, I do want to take your clothes off. See part 1b of my earlier argument.”

“Uh huh,” she says, laughing. 

“Third, I wasn’t looking at you like I wanted to take your clothes off the other times you tied my bow tie.”

Donna shakes her head. “No. But you looked at me like you loved me. Or like it was all you could do not to kiss me.”

“Then why’d you tell me to stop?”

“Because if you kept looking at me like that, I was going to tell you how much I wanted to take your clothes off,” she deadpans.

He doesn’t have time for a comeback before she pulls him in for a kiss. Her hands move from around his neck, to his biceps, then to his hands before she pulls away. 

Josh can only stare at her for a moment. “I guess I gotta wear a bow tie a lot more often.”

Donna just laughs, pulling him back toward the dance floor.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to share something with everyone that I've shared on Tumblr - The West Wing Take a Prompt, Leave a Prompt Project, or how I've been calling it, TWW Prompt Project. Basically, if you're a writer and looking for a prompt, you can go to this google doc and write one someone came up with. If you're a reader and you have a specific fic you want to read but not necessarily write yourself, you can leave a prompt. You can find the doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-5dKv_i04mXNAlajEp3WIm4JP8KzMDdg4yKw_65v78c/edit
> 
> I hope to see a ton of you there! Leave lots of prompts! We already have people taking some prompts so please feel free to join us!


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